The Technology Behind Steering The Relief Well Drill For Deepwater Horizon

The cliff notes of it is that they charge the blown well with electricity.
Electricity in a metal pipe (wire) creates a magnetic field perpendicular to the pipe.
The relief well team routinely stops to measure the magnetic field strength coming from the main well.
That data is fed back to computer models to adjust the angle of the drill.
Ixtoc did not have this technology in '79 that is why it took more than one attempt to intersect the blown well.

Some of you may find this stuff fascinating as I do.
This video explains it all very well. It is from BP but given that the MSM hates science I doubt you will find another source for "boring science details". The Boots and Coots representative helps my confidence about the the relief wells hitting their target.
It seems that as of today, the relief wells should be in their last phase which is when they turn horizontal towards the blown well.

bp.concerts.com...

reply to post by IcarusDeepSea


It's good to have a "can do" attitude. I get the impression that the relief wells will be used as "nuke chutes" though.

There seems to be a good deal of toxic compounds like benzene being released from the well according to Lindsey Williams.

Nuking the wellhead could cause more fissures. Sanity says no. But conditions are dire, what will they do?

reply to post by chorizo4

I think the relief will will be accurate and if it doesn't relief most of the pressure from the blown well the second relief well should do the trick.
Once the pressure is off the blown well they can pump concrete down the hole.
It works on paper anyway!

Originally posted by IcarusDeepSea
reply to post by chorizo4

 

I think the relief will will be accurate and if it doesn't relief most of the pressure from the blown well the second relief well should do the trick.
Once the pressure is off the blown well they can pump concrete down the hole.

Actually that's not quite the way it works. I used to work on offshore oil rigs. The purpose of the relief well is to add pressure, not to reduce it. The don't want to take pressure off the blown well, they want to add more pressure to it, that's what the relief well will enable them to do. The increased pressure inside the blown well stops it from "leaking". Then they can cement it, hopefully.

Interesting video on the technology, thanks.

[edit on 11-6-2010 by Arbitrageur]

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Oh, I get it, they will pump mud down from the relief well like they tried with the top kill?

Originally posted by IcarusDeepSea
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Oh, I get it, they will pump mud down from the relief well like they tried with the top kill?

Exactly.

It's basically bottom kill instead of top kill. By pumping the mud in deep, they don't have to fight to get it to go down like they did with the topkill.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by IcarusDeepSea
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Oh, I get it, they will pump mud down from the relief well like they tried with the top kill?

Exactly.

It's basically bottom kill instead of top kill. By pumping the mud in deep, they don't have to fight to get it to go down like they did with the topkill.

Interesting .... but what stops the mud thats injected into the original well tube from the incoming relief well on the side, from being pushed back up the damaged well by the outflowing oil and gas ... and being blown right out the top of the damaged well ?


[edit on 12/6/10 by tauristercus]

[edit on 12/6/10 by tauristercus]

Originally posted by tauristercus
Interesting .... but what stops the mud thats injected into the original well tube from the incoming relief well on the side, from being pushed back up the damaged well by the outflowing oil and gas ... and being blown right out the top of the damaged well ?

That's the whole idea. To force the mud throughout the entire old hole all the way up to the top.

The reason it will flow up the old well that blew out is because they will force it up with pressure at the bottom. They will probably make the mud extremely dense by adding lots of barium sulfate and/or other additives. So once they finish pumping the heavy mud up the length of the old hole, the weight of the mud column is what will contain the pressure and stop the outflowing of the oil and gas....hopefully. It should work. This heavy mud column is what contains the formation pressure of virtually every exploratory well that's drilled, when it doesn't blow out which is almost always.

The reason the topkill didn't work is there was too much fighting against the gas coming up to get it to go down. By getting underneath it, you don't have to fight it so that's why the bottom kill will work where the topkill didn't.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Thank you! this is the first time this has made perfect sense. You explained it crystal clear.